


Oh! Darling

by orphan_account



Category: Outlast (Video Games)
Genre: Abuse, F/M, Fake Marriage, Outlast: Whisteblower, POV Second Person, Song Lyrics, Songfic, Stockholm Syndrome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-03
Updated: 2016-11-03
Packaged: 2018-08-28 18:46:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8458867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account





	

Your bad sense of direction, constant harassment and the poor condition of most of the asylum were all making what should’ve been an easy stroll out the front door amazingly convoluted and difficult. You just wanted to leave, but somehow found yourself hiding in a room from someone who probably wanted to eat your insides, rip your head off or burn you to death. You’ve seen it all at this point.

  
The room you find yourself in, like most in the defunct asylum, is devoid of any light and illuminated only by the moonlight creeping through the windows. From your place under the table, you can tell it used to be some sort of workshop for prisoners to sew uniforms, pillowcases and sheets.  
  
Looking at the walls, you can see they're pasted with elegantly drawn designs for wedding dresses and miscellaneous women's fashion. The detail in these sketches strikes you as odd; it seemed like someone put extreme care into making them. Something you didn't think existed here anymore. In the corner sits a bloodied wedding dress constructed from prisoners' khaki jumpsuits fixed onto a crudely made mannequin. Shuddering, you wonder if this is the den of the 'Groom' you'd overheard about from wandering prisoners.  
  
You didn't know anything about him, but you did know you didn't want to get married, fake or not, in the bowels of your own personal hell. Especially not in a scratchy khaki dress covered in other people's' blood. You have standards.  
  
After a while of waiting, you begin to wonder if whoever was following you lost interest when he realized you'd blocked the entrance. It certainly wouldn't be uncharacteristic; many of the people you'd encountered would eventually lose interest once you'd crawled into a vent, holed yourself up in a room or hidden in a locker. They prefer easy prey, you guessed.  
  
Quietly, you sit forward and stick your head out from under the desk, making sure the coast is clear and you're safe to leave. Seeing no one in your path and reasoning that you didn't hear anyone open or break down a door, you creep out and haphazardly make your way to the entrance.  
  
Before you can get there, you're met with a blow to the back of the head that brings you to the floor, turning your vision white and blurry. You try to scramble back to your feet, dizzy, but receive another incapacitating blow to the back of your head. As you begin to black out, you hear the sing-song voice of your attacker draw near.  
  
"What a lucky little boy I am..."

* * *

You don't know where exactly you are when you regain consciousness, but when you open your eyes you see the damp basement ceiling and walls slowly passing. You immediately grow tense as you realize you're being carried by, undoubtedly, The Groom. Too scared to move, you stay as still as you can and squeeze your eyes back shut to feign unconsciousness. You could roll out of his arms and onto the floor, but would you be fast enough? Would you even be able to escape if you had no idea where you were?  
  
"You can't fool me, darling! I know you're awake. Aren't you excited?"  
  
Your wince. You're so close to his chest that every word reverberates through your body. He sounds mundane compared to most of the other patients, almost like a normal person. His words are slightly slurred and it’s clear he’d smoked, but besides that he has a strong, almost flamboyant voice that carries and echoes throughout the empty halls and shakes you to your core.  
  
Noticing your continued silence and stillness, he jostles you and pulls you closer, putting your head to his chest. You can't help but notice how warm he is compared to the cold asylum air.  
  
"Don't get cold feet now! We're so close." He rubs your outer thigh with his thumb and it sends a chill up your spine. You muster as much courage as you can and force yourself to speak, albeit weakly.  
  
"Close... to what?" You think of a million possibilities of what could be coming, and your blood runs cold when he lets out a hearty laugh in response. He answers your question simply:  
  
"Our wedding."

* * *

Eventually, you're brought to a room whose entrance is decorated with a sign penned in blood that reads 'home sweet home'. It's certainly not very homey to you, as the main decorative components include meat hooks and various surgical tools. You’re almost glad he’s carrying you, because the floor, like every other surface, is covered in viscera and blood. It’s not that you’re a stranger to blood and gore, you’d just prefer to keep from stepping on someone’s discarded arm or leg.  
  
He gingerly places you on an operating table in the middle of the room and busies himself with something out of your view. Cautiously, you sit up and take a look around the poorly lit room. You see it’s the same deal as the room you initially hid in; sketches and mockups of wedding dresses, wedding ceremonies and nonsensical phrases decorating the walls and corners. Thrown in seem to be some poorly made anatomical diagrams detailing the vaginoplasty process as perceived by The Groom. You certainly aren’t an expert on that sort of thing, but you’re pretty sure it’s a lot more than shoving a hacksaw into someone’s lower half and hoping for the best.

Your eyes are drawn to the door the two of you came from and your body wants to run, but you know it'd be too dangerous to. Between him knowing this area extremely well and being equipped with a multitude of weapons, you don't want to risk it. You’d find an opening and work with it, you decided. In the meantime, you ruminated on the nature of the situation at hand.

You’d never really thought about marriage. You were work driven, more interested in furthering your career than getting a husband or wife and having children. Things like that could wait, you’d thought. Now you were held captive with someone insistent in planting you with his seed and making you an obedient housewife. Your parents would be happy they were finally getting grandchildren, at least. As you’re pondering, he speaks up from his spot across the room.

“Darling, aren’t you overjoyed to be Mrs. Eddie Gluskin? Oh, I’ve always thought that sounded nice.”

You stay quiet, perplexed by how in depth The Groom… Eddie’s delusions were. You know it’s an asylum for mentally disturbed patients, but how he convinced himself that the two of you were really getting married and that you really loved him was beyond you. Did he just ignore your screaming and crying before? Did he not care? Did he think that meant you were playing hard to get? Maybe he was just desperate because you were the only woman he’d seen in his time here.

Humming to himself, he finishes his work and back to you, holding some sort of carefully folded fabric. Before anything, you're taken aback by his appearance. Prior to now, you’d avoided looking at him and have been in poor lighting but the single lightbulb above the two of you lit of his features amply.

He's a well built man, standing at what you guess is about six feet. You guessed this from the brief moments you had your eyes open while being carried, but now it was obvious. He dons an slicked back undercut and grimy dress vest and bow tie seemingly made from scraps of fabric from around the asylum. He must really have a thing for sewing. It wasn’t half bad, you thought, for a marriage bent kidnapper. The Morphogenic Engine had eaten away at the left side of his face, leaving it ridden with festering holes and scabs. This makes it hard to tell exactly how old he was, but you guessed he was at least thirty. Even more apparent are his piercingly blue eyes, surrounded by bright red sclera and caked blood. You gape at him as he comes closer, into better light.  
  
Really, he could look worse.  
  
"Darling, I'll need you to put this on for me." He thrusts the folded fabric onto your lap and grins. You see now it’s another one of his wedding dresses and your stomach flops. At the very least, this one seems a little less bloodied than the others. You wordlessly nod and hop off of the table as slowly as possible, uncomfortable with the aspect of stripping in front of someone who’s clearly a deviant. He notices your tenseness and exclaims, making you jump.

“How silly of me! I’ll turn around here. You’re not supposed to see the bride before she’s ready, huh?”

He turns around in place and makes a show of covering his hands with his eyes, giggling with delight. For once, you’re glad you’re in the company of a madman. You’ve only ever changed in front of friends before and didn’t really want to have to do it while someone who you’d just met through kidnapping breathes down your neck. You figure you’ll probably get the dress and everything beneath ripped off you, anyhow, but you like biding time.

Changing as quickly as possible, you look down and realize it’s a modest ball gown constructed from a slightly better fabric than the of the uniforms. It’s not as big as it could be, given the lack of a petticoat, but all things considered it’s pretty well made. He’s obviously had a lot of practice perfecting the art, as shown by the multitude of them fixed onto corpses and mannequins strewn about the basement. Awkwardly, you call out.

“I’m done.”

* * *

You’ve never seen anyone so overjoyed. His face lit up with immense happiness and pride and in one swift motion he picks you up and twirls you around, musing about how beautiful you look. Your face flushes and you don’t know what to feel. You should be scared, disgusted, mortified… You should be screaming and trying to rip yourself from his grip but you can’t help but feel some semblance of bashfulness.

Because of your devotion to your job, you never really even dated. No one’s called you beautiful outside of your family, no one’s held you so close or fawned over you so lovingly. Though the two of you are surrounded by gore and he’s undoubtedly going to kill you, you feel something in your stomach you’ve never really felt before.

It’s nice.

Putting you down, he steps back and surveys you, satisfied.

“Darling, you’re too good to me! The rest of them, they don’t care about how they look. They let themselves get ugly and give up on love. You…” You uncomfortably smile. You assume the ‘rest of them’ are the corpses that litter the room. You have a feeling that they didn’t give up on love or get ugly, but just succame to questionable surgical practices.  “... Are beautiful. There’s no need to fix you, because you’re perfect.”

He spins around quickly jaunts across the room, instructing for you to close your eyes. Wanting to be as compliant as possible and interested in what he was going to do next, you obey. When you feel him gently brush his hands against your hair, you jump and let out a small exclamation. He coos quietly to you and fixes what you assume to be a veil onto your head.

Hearing him step back, you open your eyes again, nervously. The veil obstructs your view because of the thicker fabric, but you can tell he’s looking down at you, beaming. Your face burns. He really _is_ delighted.

“I can’t wait to start a family with you, darling. This is the day I’ve dreamt of… No! The day _we’ve_ dreamt of.” He clasps your hands and continues, “You’re going to be an amazing mother. An amazing wife!”

You cast your eyes downward and let out a quiet laugh. You have no idea how to respond to the things he’s been saying. If no one’s ever said they’ve loved you before, you certainly don’t know how to deal with someone saying they want to marry and have children with you. He must’ve really gone through a lot of people before you if he’s this happy.

Ignoring your lack of a response, he scoops you up once more in a bridal carry. This time, you keep your eyes open.

* * *

When he sets you down once more, it’s in a decrepit chapel. Unsurprisingly, it’s not the kind of romantic, grandiose church that most people dream about getting married in. Instead, it’s a smaller room filled neatly lined up chairs meant to mock pews headed by an altar draped with grimy white fabric and a portrait of a priest. In contrast to Eddie’s various dens and workspaces, this one is surprisingly devoid of any gore. You assumed his brides before you never made it this far; that he didn’t want to sully his most sacred place with those he didn’t find satisfactory. It almost made you feel special, the whole murder thing aside.

He leads you by the hand to the altar and very deliberately dictates where you stand, eventually taking his place in front of you. You awkwardly avoid eye contact and fix your eyes on his bow tie. How you came to be standing on an altar in a wedding dress made from scraps of fabric with your officiator being a framed portrait of a likely dead priest and husband a serial killer was certainly mind boggling. Regardless, you weren’t going to stop what was happening so you elected to be as obedient as possible. You were going to eventually escape, anyways.

The two of you stand in silence holding hands for a considerable amount of time. Eddie’s nodding and looks as if he’s listening intently to something, so you assume that the ceremony has started in his mind. Your stomach is turning, this time because you’re nervous. All of the blood and guts you’ve seen here don’t compare to what you’re feeling now. You know it’s stupid, because no one’s watching and it’s not a _real_ marriage, but something about wearing the dress, standing on the altar, holding the groom’s hand almost feels real. And somehow feels...

“I do.” His sudden consent jolts you from your daydreaming and you look up at him, wide-eyed. Quickly, you repeat him. You’re glad the church forces the groom to go first, because this is the only part of the wedding ceremony you know. You don’t know how long this’ll take, but hope it won’t require much on your end.

“I, Eddie, take you to be my wife. I promise to be true to you in good times and bad.”  You listen carefully as he does so to memorize his words so you can parrot them back to him. You don’t want to risk messing them up and angering him, especially in a moment so clearly important to him. If you could dote on their meaning, you’d be flustered. He finishes and looks at you expectantly. Taking a deep breath, you begin.

“I take you, Eddie, to be my… husband. I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. I will,” you pause, scared of the next words. You don’t know if you mean them, but somehow they feel alright to say. “Love you and honor you all the days of my life.” He looks absolutely floored.

He listens intently for a few moments afterwards and lets go of one of your hands to fish two rings out of his pockets and take off his dirtied gloves. As nice as the polished rings are, you’re pretty sure he just looted them from unfortunate corpses and cleaned them to remove any leftover blood. He unceremoniously hands you one, as there’s no ring bearer, and you hold onto it as tightly as you can.

Eddie passionately recites the words for the exchange of rings and delicately slips the ill fitting ring onto your finger. You guess there probably weren’t an excess of rings in your size in the asylum, given the absence of any other women. Regardless, you take a moment to study it as it hands off of your finger. No one’s ever given you something this nice before. You bring your attention back to the ‘ceremony’ and get his ready.

“Take this ring as a sign of my love and fidelity. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” You slide the ring onto his ring finger and he looks down at you, still beaming. This makes you realize you were unintentionally smiling back at him and to yourself for some time now. You don’t bother going straight-faced.

* * *

Grabbing your hands again, he takes a step closer and your heart begins to race even more than it already was. You’ve been hot the entire time, but now your entire body flushes in waves, a mixture of nervousness and anticipation for what was to come next.

Flipping the veil out of your face, he leans towards you. You reflexively close your eyes and flinch as he eagerly kisses you, embracing you as he does so. When he breaks away, he pulls you until a hug and you leave your hands at your sides, unaware of how to process what you feel. No one’s ever cared about you like this before. The familiar jab of guilt about your lack of disgust or terror is overwhelmed by something else; a nauseous turning in your stomach that isn’t altogether bad. He reeks of blood and must, but you aren’t bothered by it. You could get used to it. 

Numbly nestling yourself into his chest, you forget altogether about anything but him. You’d like to stay here, in his arms, forever. It’s the only place you’ve felt safe during your time in the asylum and you know it’s wrong, but you knew he wouldn’t let anyone hurt you. You think back to when he knocked you out, earlier and realize now why he had done it. You were disobedient and he just wanted to take you in. To help you. He can protect you better than you can yourself, he can care for you and nurture you, he can give you things no one else can. He’ll devote himself to you. 

He squeezes you and whispers in your ear, sending pleasant shivers up your spine, “Darling… We’re beautiful together.”

When you agree, confidently, you decide one thing.

You’ll escape later.


End file.
